The passenger was introduced to all hands, who showed a depressing lack of enthusiasm, and the pilots returned to their tasks. Wilson retired, blushing and confused, to the edge of his bunk. Presently the oldest man of the party sat down beside the intruder, and shook his hand for the second time. Wilson raised his downcast face to the white-haired veteran, who said softly:
"Now, sonny, don't let the boys rile you none. They're kinder sore on some of the greenhorns that writes pieces all wrong for the Philadelphy papers, and this 'Doc' Wilson knows sailor ways and sailor lingo, and they sorter took a shine to him and his style. But fur's I know, you can write rings around him. And Old Pop Markle, as they calls me, will see you through, blow high, blow low. It's my last cruise, this is. I'm past seventy year, sonny, and my oldest boy is a pilot; he brought a tanker in yestiddy, and my grandson is servin' his apprentice years, and he'll be gettin' his papers pretty soon. It's time for me to quit. I was goin' to lay up ashore in the spring, but I kinder wanted to wind up with the old Albatross. Better come on deck, sonny; we're shortenin' cable."
Wilson smiled his gratitude at the gentle and garrulous old pilot, whose smooth-shaven face was webbed with fine-drawn wrinkles, as if each salty cruise had left its own recording line. The blue eyes were faded from staring into fifty years of sun and wind, but they held a beaming interest in the welfare of this tyro struggling in the meshes of hostile circumstance.
The reporter followed his guardian on deck, and his spirits swiftly rose. The Albatross was paying off under a flattened forestaysail, while her crew tailed onto the main-sheet with a roaring chorus, for they, too, felt a thrill of sentiment in this last cruise. The wind held fresh from the south'ard, and under the smooth lee of Cape Henlopen the Albatross shot seaward, as if they were skating over a polished floor. Now the pilots came tumbling up, and shouted as they turned to and helped set the maintopsail and staysail. The schooner staggered down to it, until the white water hissed over her low bulwark, and sobbed through the scuppers. "Old Pop" Markle slapped his knee and cried huskily:
"Give her all she'll stand, boys. It's like old times when we raced that dodgasted Number Four and hung to the weather riggin' by our teeth, and bent a new suit of sails every other cruise."
Holding the wind abeam, the Albatross drove straight out to sea, and then, once clear of Cape May, slid off to the north'ard. Now, the quartering sea picked her up and she swooped down the slopes and tried nimbly to climb the frothing hills, as the jolly wind smote her press of canvas and jammed her smoking through them. A new exhilaration surged in young Wilson's veins. He was drinking it all in, the buoyant flight of the low, slim schooner, the intimate nearness of the sea, the sweetness of the wind, and the solemnity of the marching twilight. He would not have been elsewhere for worlds. Then the fat and sweating face of the cook appeared from below, and bellowed an inarticulate summons.
The pilots obeyed with ardor, and Wilson followed timidly in their wake. Supper smoked on the cabin table, and the guest was glad to survey the stout fare of hash, cold meat, potatoes, green peas, flaky hot biscuits, and a mammoth pudding. "Old Pop" Markle took the youngster under his protecting wing, and found a seat on the locker beside his own. The reporter fell to, while the pilots chatted with bursts of gusty laughter. He made one desperate rally to join the talk, and in a quiet moment asked a neighbor:
"How do you know when a ship wants a pilot?"
"We generally have a trained green parrot that flies over and asks 'em," was the cruel response. "But we ran short of stores last cruise, and had to eat him. This voyage we intend to mail 'em postal cards."